


Bridges

by Pollymel



Category: Damar Series - Robin McKinley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollymel/pseuds/Pollymel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is the bridge between two world, and this doesn't end with accepting her Damarian heritage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to naiad and Len my co-bitchtroll for beta reading and putting up with my whining. You rock. Any mistakes are my own. Thank you, Sherwoodlady for reminding me of how much I love Damar.
> 
> Written for silksieve

 

 

As with many of Harry's ideas the complications grew after the decision was made. She would argue, vehemently and doggedly when Corlath provoked her about it, that she had thought it through very carefully and that she had considered it quite thoroughly. She would even come to nearly convince herself that she had.

Diplomatically, the invitation was the right thing to do. It was time to open up to the world outside Damar now that they had the chance. There were so many disadvantages to being a bridge between worlds it seemed wasteful, almost offensive to not take any opportunity it gave. Personally, honourably, Dickie's difficult orphaned sister had a debt to pay, even if Harimad-sol cared to ignore that duty. Harimad-sol, though, found it difficult to ignore duty, a fact that she used in those fierce, loving battles with Corlath and blamed on him.

"You made me love duty as you do," she accused him comfortably. "You infected me when you gave me this." She waved her palm, now crossed twice with thin scars.

Corlath shook his head, denying himself that power. "You loved duty long before I met you," he said. "You cannot blame it on me any more than your yellow hair or stubbornness."

Harry had waved her yellow hair at him and they had been distracted enough to move onto other things, although neither quite forgot it, each being as obstinate as the other.

So Innath and Forloy and Mathin and Jack and Harry had left for Istan and Corlath had followed reluctantly on another of Mad Harry's quests, one she was set upon although she wasn't sure why.

The answer to the questions Corlath didn't know to ask, Jack was too patient to ask and Harry didn't think of at all was there - at least a little - in both Lady Amelia and Harry's faces when they hugged. It was clumsy but heartfelt with Outlander, Hillfolk, open-hearted matron, gawky uncertain young woman, godmother and mother all bundled awkwardly into that embrace. More of the answer was in Sir Charles's watering eyes and in his handclasp with Jack.

Later, after much tactful shuffling and apologies, hesitations and patience, after Sir Charles and Lady Amelia had packed and they were on their way back to the Hills, Corlath sighed into Harry's shoulder. Stories had begun to be told, with details made fuzzy by modesty, and the camp had settled, readying for another long day of travel at dawn. Lady Amelia had gone to rest, accepting the tents and the different food with all the aplomb of her many years experience as a diplomat's wife. Sir Charles and Jack were not ready to stop speaking yet and had chased everyone else away with dismissive hand gestures and an air of cigars and whisky that was utterly independent of the presence of cigars and whiskey.

Harry smiled. "This is a good idea, you know." She shifted comfortably against Corlath amongst the cushions, not expecting an argument or an answer, listening to the sound of Sir Charles and Jack talking by the fire. The strange-familiar nostalgic sound of Homelander words in male voices heard rising and falling just out of earshot was something she had been listening to for much of her life. Her father and his friends, the sailors on the ship, the diplomats and soldiers at Istan, and the General Mundy, all had been the background sounds of her life before the hills had claimed her.

It was one of the changes that she found flaring like fire in her blood, like falling into the new language or loving her horse and her sword, but since the Battle of Bledfi Gap and Madamer's Gate she no longer simply listened to the men talking around her. Corlath had expected her involvement. As Gonturan and Katuchim watched over the great hall from either end, Corlath looked to her for her voice. Her words were listened to, in governance as in private matters, something that sat comfortably with her now, where it may not have done before she had come to the hills.

Stretched out across the rugs and cushions in their tent Corlath didn't argue or answer Harry, but listened to the voices from the fireside with her.

\---

Lady Amelia and Sir Charles adapted to the Hillfolk and their different ways with a grace that even Corlath, embittered by his family and his country's struggles with the Homelanders, had to respect. They had travelled slowly for Homelanders, but neither had complained of the long days spent in the saddle. Corlath found it hard to hold onto his anger against people who so evidently held Harry in great affection.

They returned without great ceremony or pomp. The entrance to the City was quiet with no great parade, but as word spread that there were Outlanders with the King and his Damalur-sol Queen, more and more silent watchers appeared. The horses passed through the streets climbing up to the palace, Lady Amelia and Sir Charles straightened their spines, knowing they were on show and smiled. That was what the folk who saw them spoke of later; that they had seen the Outlanders in their city, that the Outlanders had smiled and that Harimad-sol smiled at them.

Harry had smiled, but had suddenly become a lot less certain as they arrived. This good idea was suddenly confusing. Now, more than she had ever felt before, more than when Dickie visited or Jack and the other renegade Homelander soldiery as they setted into their new lives, she felt she had brought both parts of her life into one place. She was not yet happy enough to be entirely casual about the mixture of Homelander and Damarian under her skin, and this great idea reminded her of her internal battles. The high bright sun over the Palace made her blink, hiding her sudden confusion from the others in this tiny diplomatic cavalcade.

Lady Amelia fell in love with Aerin Amelia the moment that the baby was placed in her arms. Tor Mathin took a little longer, whole minutes after he greeted his parents and was hugged and swung up onto Jack's shoulders to survey these new and strange adults who had been brought into his home. Sir Charles' bluff good will took longer for the children to like. His huge hearty smile as he greeted Richard made Harry forget her confusion, though.

Holding his son on one hip and flanked by his tall wife, Richard did not look very much like the young and promising Homelander Officer who had approached Sir Charles with the difficulty of an orphaned sister. He did look happy and to the older couple, who had last seen Richard anxious and tired and angry from his futile search for Harry, he looked wonderful. He reached out a hand to Sir Charles, who ignored it and embraced him and yet again all attempt at formality was lost as Lady Amelia reached out her hands to Kentarre in a universal gesture of welcome, who hesitated for a long moment, then smiled and returned it.

Harry, who watched from behind Aerin Amelia's clinging arms, felt Corlath lean against her. "This is why," he said.

"A little," she replied, resting against him, and she felt Gonturan dig into her side, waiting to be hung up again, also happy to be home.

It was a little because of that, and other pieces of her muddled and hidden meanings came clear as time passed. Sir Charles returned home after the naming ceremony, Lady Amelia stayed on, making herself useful and loved, and diplomatic channels between the two nations slowly opened. Luthe smiled when he heard of this and somewhere a redheaded woman laughed her amusement at the vagaries of diplomacy.

As Harry and Corlath ruled their country with as firm a hand and as light hearts as were necessary, and Aerin was followed by Jack and Jack by Hari, being a bridge was not always lonely and often a joy. For a long time after she had pulled the mountain down on Thurra, she had felt at home and of the hills. It was her home and her heart. But she didn't forget that her history was elsewhere and she told stories of green grottos and dark forests to her children and to her nephews and nieces when they tired of tales of Aerin the Dragonslayer. A bridge must have two ends and she came to remember how to love both.

~Fin~

 


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